History Unplugged Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Prohibition: How it Happened, Why it Failed, and How it Still Affects America Today Jul 17, 2018

Show notes

America has a strange relationship with alcohol. Certain drinks represented the darkest parts of the national psyche. Rum was once associated with slavery because sugar cane plantations that made rum were only profitable with chattel slavery. Whisky and hard cider were omnipresent in the 19th century, turning able-bodied men into drunkards who couldn't support their families and left them to starve.
But it was Prohibition that is strangest of all. America successfully outlawed alcohol, the first and only modern nation to do so. The unintended consequences were enormous: from physicians falsifying alcohol's positive effects so they could write prescriptions for “medicine” and make a handsome profit, to record numbers of men converting to Judaism so they could administer alcohol in rabbinical ceremonies.
Here to untangle the Gordion knot of alcohol in America's past is Cody Wheat from the Shots of History Podcast.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What Did People Eat in the Middle Ages? Jul 12, 2018

Show notes

Welcome to an anthology episode where I ask six short questions about the Middle Ages from you, the listener. Here they are in order of appearance:
What Did People Eat in the Middle Ages?How Did You Conquer a Castle?Could You Tell Me About Harold Hardrada?Why is Thomas Becket Still So ImportantDid Rome Fall Because Christianity Made it Soft?Did Any African Explorers Come to Europe or Asia in the Middle Ages?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Almost Everything in American Politics has Happened Before, Even Donald Trump—Bruce Carlson from My History Can Beat Up Your Politics Jul 10, 2018

Show notes

Cable news pundits tell you everything is “breaking news.” TV pundits discuss politics in a vacuum. But in nearly every case, the politics of today have long roots in history. This includes media celebrities winning elections by manipulating the press and lobbing gross insults (Huey Long in the 1920s), breakdowns in the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico (the 1840s Mexican-American War) and fears of presidential executive overreach (the 1780s with George Washington).
In this episode I talk with Bruce Carlson, host of the My History Can Beat Up Your Politics podcast about how nearly every issue in U.S. politics has an analogue in the past. He uses history to elevate the discussion of today's politics.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Quest to Make Information Free Forever: Copyright Battles From Venetian Printers in the Renaissance to 21st Century Hackers Jul 05, 2018

Show notes

The © symbol (or "Copyright") is a completely forgettable character ignored by all but lawyers. It is buried at the bottom of legal notices that your brain reflexively skips over. But this little symbol represents a war that has raged for centuries between authorities that want to restrict dangerous information, publishers that want to profit by it, artists that want to stop plagiarists, and open-information activists that want to make everything public domain.
In this episode I look at the history of copyright, the battle over how much information should cost. What is the line between protecting the rights of publishers and artists so they can make a living, and depriving society of crucial information and sentencing them to ignorance and illiteracy?
The battle includesVenetian Printer Aldus Manutius, who invented Italic font in 1500s Venice. He complained of French plagiarists, who copied his techniques in order to trick book buyers, even though “[t]he lettering, upon closer inspection, betrays a certain Frenchiness” and were “produced on foul paper, ‘with [a] strange odor.”Miguel Cervantes, who battled unauthorized sequels to Don Quixote by inserting those characters into his actual sequel and mocking them.England's Statue of Anne, the first copyright law that inadvertently led to a cartel of London book publishers who artificially limited production and drove book prices through the roof.America's lax prosecution of illegal printers of British literature, leading to a boom in education.Aaron Swart'z 2010 hack of MIT's network in order to illegally download five million academic articles and “liberate” them to the Internet

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How a Rivalry Between Two Cherokee Chiefs Led to the Trail of Tears and the Collapse of Their Nation Jul 03, 2018

Show notes

A century-long blood feud between two Cherokee chiefs shaped the history of the Cherokee tribe far more than anyone, even the reviled President Andrew Jackson. They were John Ross and the Ridge. Today I'm talking with John Sedgwick about the fall of the Cherokee Nation due to the clash of these two figures.
The Ridge (1771–1839)—or He Who Walks on Mountains—was a Cherokee chief and warrior who spoke no English but whose exploits on the battlefield were legendary. John Ross (1790–1866) was the Cherokees’ primary chief for nearly forty years yet spoke not a word of Cherokee and proudly displayed the Scottish side of his mixed-blood heritage. To protect their sacred landholdings from American encroachment, these two men negotiated with almost every American president from George Washington through Abraham Lincoln. At first friends and allies, they worked together to establish the modern Cherokee Nation in 1827. However, the two founders eventually broke on the subject of removal; the Ridge believed resisting President Jackson and his army would be hopeless, while Ross wanted to stay and fight for the lands the Cherokee had occupied since long before the white settlers’ arrival.
The failure of these two respected leaders to compromise bred a hatred that led to a bloody civil war within the Cherokee Nation, the tragedy of the Trail of Tears, and finally, the two factions battling each other on opposite sides of the Civil War. Sedgwick writes, “It is the work of politics to resolve such conflicts peacefully, but Cherokee politics were not up to the job. For a society that had always operated by consensus, there was little tradition of compromise.” Although the Cherokee were one of the most culturally and socially advanced Native American tribes in history, with their own government, language, newspapers, and religion, Sedgwick notes, “The warrior culture offered few gradations between war and peace, all or nothing.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If It Weren't For Two Iowans, Billions Would Have Died of Starvation or Been Left in a Technological Dark Age Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

Norman Borlaug and Robert Noyce aren't household names. But these two Iowans influenced the 20th century more than anyone else on Planet Earth. Borlaug created drought and disease-resistant varieties of wheat that thrived in poor soils throughout the planet. Because of him, billions in the developing world avoided starvation (they probably only missed it by about a decade). Noyce invented the integrated circuit and founded Intel. He is the father of Silicon Valley, the digital revolution, and the Internet economy that connects the world.
Both men owe their success to their farm roots in Iowa.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Introducing the History Unplugged Membership Program Jun 27, 2018

Show notes

Learn how to get access to bonus episodes of History Unplugged (including a multi-part series on Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in WW2), the entire History Unplugged back catalogue, and even shout-outs at the end of each episode. Learn more by going to https://patreon.com/unplugged

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life After Auschwitz: How European Jews Attempted to Assimilate in America After Unspeakable Tragedy Jun 26, 2018

Show notes

What happened to Jews after they were liberated from concentration camps? Some tried to return to their homes, only to find them occupied by neighbors who thought them dead and refused to give up their new dwellings. Others went on to build lives in the United States, but never truly found a place to call home. They wanted to tell their new compatriots about their experiences, but were silenced. “You’re in America now, put it behind you” is what they were told.
Today I'm speaking with Jon Kean, director of the new documentary After Auschwitz, a “Post-Holocaust” documentary that follows six women after their liberation from Nazi concentration camps. The women Kean follows became mothers and wives with successful careers, but never fully healed from the scars of the past. His film captures what it means to move from tragedy and trauma towards life.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Patton and Churchill's Experiences Before and During World War Two Jun 21, 2018

Show notes

This is an anthology episode that looks at the experiences of Winston Churchill and Gen. George S. Patton before and during World War Two. Specifically this episode will explore
Patton's experiences in World War One as a tank commanderChurchill's wilderness years in the 30s in which many thought his career was overPatton's theatrical entrance into German in 1945America's (and FDR's) first reaction to the Pearl Harbor bombing

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Special Announcement: Presidential Fight Club Is Now Its Own Podcast Jun 20, 2018

Show notes

Remember when we did the 44-episode series on this show called Presidential Fight Club that imagined what would happen if every president fought each other one-on-one? Now it has been re-released as its own podcast, and you can find it on https://presidentialfightclub.com. Please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected